The Convergence of Film and Games

I have chosen this article because it is an article that I find interesting as it talks about the current situation between the film and gaming industries.

The article is written by Michael Ewins and is from issue 40 of MediaMagazine. This issue is the 'play issue' and is also from April 2012. 

The article sets out how the film and gaming industries have adapted from each others styles in recent years and explores what is the next step and where they will go next. 

Ewins states in the article how in September 2005, game developers Quantic Dream released the game 'Fahrenheit'. The game was a third-person thriller which employed motion capture technology. 

Ewins also states how 'the game marked a conscious shift toward narrative-driven drama within the industry'. 

The article then goes on to talk about how there are now many links to be made between the film and gaming industries and that they both copy each others styles from time to time. Saying that Hollywood is now 'producing video games for the multiplex' and 'compromising great stories'. 

However, I actually disagree that Hollywood are producing 'great stories' as nearly all if not every video game film that has been produced has been a failure for a number of reasons. The most important reason is because they are not as interactive as the original video game. You can't change what the character is wearing or what he does like you would be able to in the game. Another reason why I think video games are failing as films is because of too much change. A lot of people of course like the narrative in the video games and the story it tells. However, if a director doesn't like certain aspects of the story and makes too much change to it then it will displease  lot of people as it will be too much different from the original game

The video below is one I found off of YouTube by 'The Game Theorists' and they discuss why video games are currently failing as movie and they back up what I'm saying and bring up a lot of interesting points as well. 

However, the gaming industry has done very well in adapting film narrative into their games like mentioned by Michael Ewin in the article and a fantastic example of this is the video game 'Heavy Rain' by Quantic Dream.